Turkey denied Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s request to use its airspace for his flight to attend the ongoing United Nations 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Turkish officials confirmed that Israeli authorities submitted a request for Herzog’s plane to use Turkish airspace en route to the climate change conference, which is taking place from November 11 to 22 in Baku.
Turkish authorities declined his request.
On Saturday, Herzog canceled his participation in the conference, citing “security considerations,” a statement from his office said.
According to a Sunday report on the Israeli-based Ynet news website, officials in Azerbaijan took exception to the suggestion that their country was not safe for Herzog to visit, and said the real reason for the cancellation was Turkey’s refusal.
Israeli officials were cited as saying that the cancellation was indeed due to security assessments, but that they at no point had said there was a security problem in Azerbaijan itself.
According to the report, an Azerbaijani official said Israel and Turkey had engaged in “intensive negotiations through diplomatic channels that lasted for several days but did not yield results,” and ultimately Ankara refused to allow use of its airspace.
The rest of the Israeli delegation to the UN conference, which includes three ministers and dozens of officials, are attending as planned and arrived in Azerbaijan on November 11. The Ynet report said that the delegation arrived in Baku via commercial flights through Georgia.
Herzog had talks in Ankara with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in March 2022 in the first visit by an Israeli president since 2007 amid a brief normalization in relations that became strained once again after the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war last year.
Relations between Turkey and Israel have been deteriorating since the start of Israel’s devastating offensive against the Palestinian enclave of Gaza following an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas in October 2023, which claimed some 1,200 lives. The ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza have so far killed more than 43,000 people and caused massive devastation in the enclave.
All direct flights between Turkey and Israel have been cancelled since the outbreak of the war in Gaza last year.
In July, Israel’s national carrier El Al announced that its Warsaw to Tel Aviv flight was not allowed to refuel at Antalya airport after making an emergency landing to evacuate a passenger for medical reasons. Turkish diplomatic sources confirmed the plane was allowed to make an emergency landing to evacuate a passenger who was ill, but denied that the plane was not allowed to refuel.
They said the captain of the plane decided to leave of his own accord before the relevant procedure was about to be completed.
The plane took off to refuel in Rhodes, the airline said at the time, adding that it was made to wait on the tarmac in Turkey for several hours.
Erdoğan, who has positioned himself as a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, often criticizes Israel’s actions in the region.
In May, Turkey officially halted all direct trade with Israel in response to mounting domestic criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza yet faces some accusations of ongoing trade activity.